


Click, Click

by CaptainBrieOnToast



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: All of Seventeen is in this at some point, Choi Seungcheol | S.Coups & Lee Jihoon | Woozi Friendship, F/M, Mentioned Choi Seungcheol | S.Coups, Mentioned SEVENTEEN Ensemble
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-02-27 06:21:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18733369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainBrieOnToast/pseuds/CaptainBrieOnToast
Summary: You fell in love with Woozi from Seventeen all on your own. You fell in love with him watching fancams in the cold depths of your room, huddled beneath blankets. You fell in love with him while walking outside in the pouring rain with every new photo you got sent. You fell in love with him every time a person called him cute and you joked that somewhere in the world, he was triggered. You fell in love with Woozi from Seventeen at every possible moment no matter how every fiber of your being screamed at you not to fall for his tricks.You fell in love with Lee Jihoon from South Korea with the help of himself, his friends, your friends, and the noise of a camera capturing your eternal image at every turn.





	1. Chapter 1

Your apartment in South Korea didn't have any ceiling fans.

You pressed your lips contemplatively together as you stared up at the spot that should have held a ceiling fan. You stared at it blankly as if the more you looked the more likely it were to show up. It was…  _hot_ , much too hot for you to really be comfortable while sitting on the fluffy covers that lay rested over your bed. You could open a window but… That  _would_  require movement.

You rested your head against the wall behind you, watching as the YouTube video on your phone you had previously been trying to pay attention to zoomed in on one of the characters hands.

The hand wasn't moving. You found that odd. The image lay fixed on that perfectly still hand for seconds as the time clicked by. At first, you waited patiently for something,  _anything_  to happen on screen. You were surprised when nothing did to the point that you even tapped the screen to make sure that the video hadn't frozen.

It hadn't.

You stared contemplatively at the hand, you waited expectantly for it to twitch, wondering if that much time really  _was_  passing or if maybe you were just so zoned out that it seemed that way only in your own mind.

You turned your eyes and rested your own hand similarly on the bed, suddenly feeling the urge to mirror what you were seeing. You tried to make your own fingers twitch. You flexed them contemplatively, once,  _twice._ No… No that was no good. It looked much too unnatural. If you were the person in the video there would surely be comment after comment about how fake your finger movement had been. You raised your hand to inspect your own fingers more closely. Maybe your issue lied in your fingers themselves?

You set your hands back down after only a moment. Your hands were shaking too hard for you to really determine anything.

You sighed and retracted your eyes from your shaking hand to the hand on the screen. It was still so motionless. It hadn't twitched, and it wasn't shaking, and you couldn't help but wonder how that could be. How could someone keep so still? Keep so calm?

Suddenly on the screen, another hand joined the first one. It intertwined with the original. You retracted your own hand from its previous state and turned the video off.

 _Ha,_  of course,  _that_  had been it.

You thought the silence would be better than what you had before. At least without the video playing in the background, you weren't left craving a personal intimacy you could never expect any of your friends to return. But the silence… It was deafening.

You remained frozen for a moment, just staring across the room at the other wall. There was nothing on it. You had just moved into this room after all, and you still had to put up the extent of your wall decor.

You considered doing it right then, but when you shifted to hold a tentative hand in the air, you decided against it.

Shaking hands would make it difficult to put up posters.

"Are you really still in bed? Come on, the day is young! I won't let you waste it all in bed!"

Your bedroom door burst open and one of your roommates, Julia, burst into the room. She was shorter than you were, Filipino, and one of the sweetest people that you knew. She just... could sometimes be  _a little_  assertive.

"We're in Korea for a year,  _at least_. Why do I need to rush around on our first day here?" You responded wearily. You had initially been  _really_  excited for your first day in Korea. There were so many places you wanted to go and so many things you wanted to see, and honestly, a year didn't feel like long enough to do it all.

You couldn't help that when you woke up that morning any wish to do anything had just… Vanished. You could barely give yourself a good reason to get dressed. Much less go outside.

"Every day you don't go out is a day that you miss the chance to see  _him_."

You wrinkled your nose and turned your eyes down to your friend. She had a stupid grin on her face, surely knowing that her words had been  _just the right ones to say_  in order to get under your skin.

"You know the likelihood that we will see them this year? Just because we are in Korea-"

"And going past their entertainment company every single day this year-"

"Doesn't mean that we will see them!" You protested. "Much less even get the opportunity to talk to them."

"And  _fall in love_."

Your other roommate, Caitlin, walked in at that.

"Oh, are we talking about Lee Jihoon?"

You threw a pillow at her.

"You guys both better shut up or I really  _won't_  go out today," you stated stubbornly. Caitlin threw the pillow right back.

"Hey, we all have our idol goals to meet, so let's get moving."

Both girls began to exit your room, you watched them leave knowing now was the time for you to get up and get dressed and get out of this hot apartment..

"We came to Korea for an education, not to stalk hard working people, you know!" You called after them.

You still couldn't find it. The urge to move, that drive to do something with your life.  _God_ , you didn't know where it had gone. All you did know was that for the moment you didn't have it. For the moment you would give anything to be able to stay on your own. Keep away from your friends for some time.

They weren't having any of it.

"Shut up and get dressed!" Julia ordered back.

You glanced down at the packed suitcase on the floor of your room and reluctantly began to crawl out of your bed.

Korea was a beautiful country. Seoul was a beautiful city.

It was hard for you to believe that had it not been for your introduction into the world of kpop you may not have ever been able to come here and see this place. You had always liked the idea of traveling but as a kid, you had never set any Asian country other than China in your sights.

Luckily, you  _had_  found your way into the vast world of kpop and idols, and that drive led to you to form a fascination for the language, the culture, the people, and of course  _the idols._

Your friends all joked a lot about stalking idols but in reality, none of them had any intention to do so. You  _were_  all fans of Kpop, and you  _were_  learning Korean partly because of that, but you weren't as insanely obsessive as some fans and you weren't going to waste your time in another country chasing after people who in reality didn't actually care much for you at all.

You were here to make  _real_  friends, who weren't just nice to you because you spent 200 dollars buying their albums just for a photocard of them, that you  _didn't even end up getting._

Of course, making friends in Korea was going to be hard. Your Korean was pretty good, but it wasn't perfect, and you weren't as socially inclined as some people believed. Plus you were  _terrified_ of coming off to anyone as just another koreaboo. Back at home you just generally avoided talking about kpop around people that might know what it was and judge you for liking it. Here, there wasn't really any avoiding that. You could see it in the eyes of pretty much all of the locals. They knew what had inevitably brought you here.

You sighed and shoved your hands in your pocket, murmuring an apology under your breath as you stepped out of the way of another person.

You wished that you could improve your mood.

Normally, you would be thrilled to be here in this situation. You should be giggling with Caitlin and Julia as you silently pulled a Seoho and Keonhee and danced to Heart Shaker while you shopped for food, but instead all you wanted to do was go home and lay in your bed, and do legitimately nothing for the rest of your life.

You  _couldn't_  do that though. That was unfair to all that you had done to get here and unfair to your friends who had been excited to come here after all the planning you guys had done. So, instead of moping in your own, completely unreasonable state of depression, you forced a smile onto your lips.

"I think I'm going to run to the bathroom, okay?" You murmured to your friends. They nodded, both consumed in excitement at the food they had just found at the street vendor they were passing. As you walked away to find the bathroom you considered eating. You hadn't eaten too much today, and you knew that you should eat but you weren't hungry either way. You considered possibly stress eating, but there wasn't really any reason to be stressed out at the moment.

You almost bumped into a tall guy, and your face burned red.

Okay, there wasn't any  _reasonable_  reason for you to be stressed right now. All of these people that spoke a different language then you was a reason for you to stress out in your mind all on its own.

But you weren't going to do that. You weren't going to give in to your anxiety and ruin your first day in Korea.

Once you were out of the bathroom, you spotted your friends pretty quickly. They were talking to someone that you had never seen before. He was in all black, with colorful Nike shoes. You joined the group, making your friends jump excitedly.

"Hey! Meet Jongin! He was born in Seoul but- and this is  _insane_  he visits our city all the time!"

You forced a smile onto your lips and dipped your head towards him politely in greeting.

"It's a pleasure to meet you," you said to him.

You didn't hear what he said next in favor of watching the passing crowd. You caught sight of a passing couple, their fingers tightly entwined as they made their way together through the crowd. She was smiling pretty brightly, using her free hand to brush her long dark hair out of her face. He was just watching her, this loving expression riddled over his facial expressions. You paused to look down at your own hand again. You spread your fingers and then clenched your hand into a fist.

You then sighed and dropped your hands back to your side. When you looked up, you noticed Jongin was looking at you. You smiled, partially as an apology, partially in shame at having been caught doing something so embarrassing.

"Are you okay?" Jeongin asked. You frowned and tilted your head to the side as if the idea of being unwell at all was ridiculous. Your friends noticed this and laughed.

"She's probably just thinking of her  _boyfriend_ ," Caitlin said teasingly. You smacked her shoulder.

"Shut up," you grumbled. That response made Jeongin scrunch his facial features together.

"Boyfriend?"

" _Lee Jihoon_ ," Caitlin cooed. You hit her again.

"Shut up! I don't even like him!" You protested in English. Caitlin took off, laughing as she rushed around the sidewalk. You chased her, you both probably looking like children as you playfully called after each other in English. A few of the people on the sidewalk gave you both side glances as you brushed past them.

"You like Lee Jihoon, you like Lee Jihoon,  _you like Lee Jihoon_."

"Caitlin Elizabeth Bordallo, don't make me hurt-"

Just as you were saying that someone stepped in front of you. You slid to a stop, barely keeping from bumping into the stranger. You didn't even look at the person, you just dropped your head into a deep bow and blurted an apology in Korean. You were going to just wait for a response and then move on as quickly as possible, but the response that you received, wasn't what you expected.

"You're a lot more aware then I assumed, I thought you would run into him."

The first thing that made this sentence odd was that it was in English. Not to say that Koreans can't speak in English, it was just really well spoken and not expected. The second thing that surprised you about it was that  _you recognized that voice._

"Stop speaking in English, you know I don't know it well," a voice added in Korean. It was whiny and loud. You recognized  _it_  as well and if you were right…. Not that you  _could_  be right, this had to be some sort of  _dream or-_

You looked up and the color drained from your face.

The owner of the first voice was none other then Vernon- Hansol,  _from Seventeen_. The second voice, well there was no doubt that it was Boo Seungkwan. You swallowed hard and your eyes turned to the person in front of you.

He looked…  _Amused_. Something inside you was relieved that he looked amused. He was everything that you had always imagined too. Ruffled dark hair stuffed beneath a black ball cap, that cocky smile, his hands on his hips and his body posed in a way that despite his height made him seem like he was a lot bigger than you.

Ironically, the first thing that you thought was that he was  _taller_  than you thought he would be. All the joking your friends had done, and all of the times that you had stubbornly stood up and held your hand in front of your face saying that the  _height difference really wasn't that big_  meant nothing when actually stood in front of him.

Your eyes lowered to his shoes, but you decided he wasn't wearing anything to make him taller. You broke out into a nervous smile, and distractedly rubbed the back of your neck.

"You make it sound like you meant to push someone in front of me," You said in Korean, directing your eyes to Vernon. He, on the other hand, was  _much_  taller than you thought he would be. You had to actually lift your chin a bit in order to properly eye him.

"But you wouldn't do that," you added in English. The switch of languages made Seungkwan grow exasperated again. He snapped his fingers sharply dragging your attention to him. Now  _he_  was more your height. Still taller then you had imagined, but your eyeline was much more even with him.

"Hey!" He protested. "You're in Korea now, so how about you use a language I can understand!"

You chuckled, not confidently at all, and lowered your head again.

"Sorry, I-I hope I didn't bother you, strangers, too much," you stated. Your voice quivered a bit. You couldn't believe what was happening.

It was your first day in Korea.

It was your first day in Korea,  _and you had almost literally run into three members of one of your favorite kpop groups ever_.

You turned away from the boys, perfectly content with escaping from them, without intention of even getting a picture because you were  _so utterly mortified_  when-

"Don't pretend like you don't know us."

You froze. That voice.  _That voice_  was one you had never even dreamed you would get to hear in real life. It was almost too much to hear him speaking to you so casually. Like you were old friends. You turned on your heel.

"I'd hate to bother you," you replied. "I'm sure there are lots of moments when fans try to talk to you in your free time."

"We'll make an exception this once," Jihoon responded. That smile was still on his face. You didn't understand it. He acted like he knew you in a way, but that wasn't possible. That wasn't possible at all. You had only had a few "interactions" with him- if you could even call them that. You commented on his instagram pretty frequently, and you had written many letters to him… None of which you actually sent...

But there was  _no way_  he recognized you from that.

"Come on, call your friends over. We can all take a picture together."

They didn't wait for you to do it yourself. Vernon smiled,  _mischievously_  and called over your friends. They weren't reacting quite the way you were and you felt like you must be imagining it but the boys were acting  _much_  more like their stage selves in front of them. They were smiling and kind and not speaking every word like they were playing some sort of game.

It made you unnecessarily suspicious.

 _Click, click_.

"Alright! Got them! You all look great!" Jeongin said pleasantly. You dropped your pose and thanked Jeongin for taking the picture. You then turned and thanked the boys for taking a picture with you in the first place. It was kind of them to do something like this for you guys.

Your friends were busy excitedly looking at the photo that had been airdropped to you, but all three of the boys were looking at you with an odd expression. You wrinkled your nose and your gratitude became only half expressed.

"We're more than happy to meet fans," Vernon said. Seungkwan started to say something. It wasn't directed towards you, and you knew that it wasn't really meant for you to hear either. It was about plans for the day so you turned your ear away from the group.

It wasn't until later when you were back in your new temporary home that you realized Jihoon had even said goodbye to you, that Jihoon had said your name during the conversation  _something he shouldn't have known_  and despite it all that when you looked at your hands they were no longer shaking.


	2. Chapter 2

_Our first day in Korea and we met Vernon, Seungkwan, and Woozi from Seventeen! It feels like I’m dreaming!_

You stared at the picture all three of you had taken, your face expressionless. The caption was nothing exceptional, but you decided that you were going with it either way. If you didn’t do that one then you would just be quoting one of their songs, and this one was arbitrarily better for your friends who didn’t know anything about kpop.

“Should I tag Vernon, Boo, and Jihoon?” You asked aloud. Caitlin glanced over at your phone screen, her expression turning contemplative.

“I guess I don’t see why not,” she stated.

You stared at the picture. All their smiles looked so real. Everyone’s smile looked so real.

Your eyes drifted to your face in the picture. There was a smile on your face. You could tell that there was one there. Your lips were upturned and everything.

So… Why didn’t  _your_  smile look real to you?

You posted the picture.

You didn’t tag them in it.

“Classes don’t start for another week,” you stated finally. “Then we meet the other kids in the program right? No more running around Korea. We have to study.”

“Don’t make it sound so final. We’re here for a whole two semesters! We get to spend Christmas here and everything,” Julia said excitedly.

“We’re really lucky,” you agreed. Likes started to pop up on your phone screen, a few comments popped up as well. Some of your friends were commenting on how much fun it looked. A few were excited because they knew of Seventeen. You closed your eyes, letting the world go dark.

You didn’t feel very lucky anymore.

Why didn’t you feel lucky?

Your eyes dropped to your hands. Rested on your legs they looked pretty normal. You did a quick test, spreading them out, closing them into a fist, raising them into the air.

You were shaking again.

You almost laughed.

 _Of course_  you were shaking again. Had you really thought that the stillness of your hands would last?

You shoved them beneath your thighs and leaned forward a bit. Both of your friends were messing with their phones, hardly paying attention to the world around them. You leaned back against the fluffy couch.

“You know what would be cool? If we found that store that Oneus is always shopping in. I know there are like a ton of grocery stores in Korea, and at the end of the day it’s just a grocery store, but it would be so cool if we found it nonetheless,” you stated. Your friends barely responded to you they were so absorbed with their social media.

You considered getting back on your own phone but decided not to in favor of just standing up. You stretched out your arms and walked to a nearby window. The view wasn’t great but nonetheless, it was different than the one you were used to. Back at home, the only thing you could see was the high school across the street. Here you could see so much more. So many more people and interactions.

You watched as a girl walked alone, a grocery bag in her hand, and earbud wires hanging from her ears. Not far from her a group of friends was walking. Three guys and one girl, all laughing thoughtfully. You leaned your forehead against the window.

Two girls, so close to one another physically, but so different from one another in the moment either way. The girl with the grocery bag was smiling. She was happy, maybe because of the music likely playing in her ears. Maybe just because she was having a good day. Either way, it was real. You knew it was. No one would smile when no one was looking for no reason.

The other girl, the one with her friends was smiling too. She playfully hit one of her friends on his arm and loudly proclaimed something you couldn’t hear. Her smile seemed real too. She was in the center of her group of friends, if she wasn’t happy then there would be no need for her to be in the center. She would slink towards the back, trying to draw attention away from her. It was nice to see four people all so genuinely happy with one another. They all seemed to be platonic too. None of the guys watched the girl more closely than they watched one another. It was oddly refreshing.

The girl stuck her tongue out childishly at one of the boys. He protested and began to chase her, he scooped her up and lifted her over his shoulder. Her mouth opened in what you imagined was a squeal and the boy carried her around the sidewalk. It was loud enough that the girl with the earbuds looked up surprised.

The girl on the shoulder of the boy turned meek when they made eye contact. She smiled and waved. The girl with the earbuds laughed to the point that she covered her hand with her mouth and waved as well.

Both girls returned to their own activities.

You wondered what it would be like if either of the girls had seen you. Would you have been able to share their state of innocent bliss? Would you be able to smile with them and let it be completely genuine?

You tried to spread your lips into a smile.

It shrunk after only a moment.

You knew that you used to be able to smile like those girls down there. You knew that once upon a time, you had been able to smile for the stupidest reasons over the stupidest things. No matter how hard life got, you could make a smile cross your lips and it had always been real.

_When did your smiles stop being real?_

“Oh my god.”

You looked away from the city below you and glanced at Caitlin. She was sitting on the couch, but now her expression was morphed into one of pure excitement.

“Oh my god, oh my god,  _oh my god._ ”

“What? Did V tweet a good picture or something?” You asked.

“No, your picture on instagram oh my god your picture on instagram, they commented on it.”

“What are you talking about?” You asked, moving away from the window.

“ _Oh my god_ , they really did,” Julia exclaimed. “You  _have_  to see this! I can’t even believe my eyes!”

You rushed over to the couch and grabbed your phone. On the screen were the normal notifications.

_Liked by Sunrise_sunset, Liked by sarangyou, Liked by emilykennedy, Liked by otakulife, Liked by…_

You froze.

_Liked by woozi_universefactory, Liked by chwenotchew, Liked by pledis_boos_

“No fucking way,” you murmured. You slide open your phone and loaded the photo. You went under the comment section on your page and sure enough.

_Chwenotchew: Wow, The six of us look good together! We should meet one another again!_

_Pledis_boos: @chwenotchew we’re together all the time what are you talking about?_

_Woozi_universefactory: I can’t believe we weren’t tagged in this. How are people supposed to know who is who?_

You stared at your phone screen, your mouth gaping wide.

“H-how-”

“Well, your account is on public.”

“They still shouldn’t have been able to find it!” You protested.

“Didn’t you spam Seungkwan’s account once? And you comment on all of Woozi’s pictures. Maybe they glanced at your account one time and recognized you when we met,” Julia suggested. You scoffed.

“Do you even hear yourself, they are idols,” you exclaimed. “How could you try to rationalize this? There’s no rational explanation to why idols would leave comments on my instagram.”

“She’s right. It is a little bizarre,” Caitlin agreed. “They didn’t even like our posts.”

“We’re both on private,” Julia pointed out. Caitlin pouted.

“Well, they didn’t try to follow us.”

“I don’t think any of the members of Seventeen have ever done something like this,” Julia stated after a long moment. All three of you stared at your phones. The comments seemed to blur in your vision. You couldn’t even focus on the comments anymore. You couldn’t understand what you had done for them to pay attention to you. It was bizarre the very first time they paid attention to you. It was bizarre now.

You kept thinking that the comments would disappear.

“You’re so lucky,” Julia breathed. Caitlin made a soft noise of affirmation.

The comments didn’t disappear.


	3. Chapter 3

For the first time in a while, you were on your own. A few days had passed since the Instagram incident. Your account went viral for the attention and a ton of fans had followed you on the social media platform. There were rumors that you were dating Vernon, rumors that you and your friends had hacked their Instagram accounts to leave the comments, rumors that it hadn’t actually been the boys.

But you weren’t, and you hadn’t, and it had been.

You had gotten a lot of comments on your posts. Even your old posts from middle school weren’t safe. You were getting called a lot of things by a lot of people.

None of it really affected you. The nice comments, the mean ones, neither mattered. You didn’t care what they had to say. They didn’t know you. So how could they have any control over your feelings?

Yeah, wasn’t  _that_  a mature way to approach the situation?

You sat down in the grass at a park you had stumbled upon while walking around. It was really pretty there. The sun was boring down on you, and it was relatively warm out. The upper eighties if you were measuring the temperature in Fahrenheit.

You should be sweating even when dressed in a pair of shorts and a tank top, especially since you had been sitting directly in the sun for the upper end of an hour. Even so, you weren’t sweating. You weren’t hot. You weren’t even  _warm_. You were cold.

You shivered.

While inside you had just assumed that you were under an air vent, or maybe the apartment you and your friends were sharing was just cold. You had moved outside hoping it would change how you felt, but no matter where you went, you felt cold.

You had looked like an idiot asking for hot chocolate in this blazing heat, and even that had done nothing for you.

“Maybe I’m sick,” you murmured to yourself. Even as you said it you knew it wasn’t true. While you felt cold _like_ when you were sick, you could tell that you weren’t. Your throat was fine, and while your eyes _were_ heavy, it was probably just from getting used to sleeping at different times here in Korea. You got like this sometimes. When you had made some sort of mistake that you couldn’t really keep up with. When your mental health was getting so low that you needed to just sit back and stop stressing.

How could you stop stressing though? How could you relax? How could you feel anything when everything felt like it was closing in on you? When everything felt so hopeless?

“You seem contemplative.”

You didn’t even jump. You slowly turned your head towards the voice. It was Jihoon again. At first you thought you were seeing things, but after you stared up at him for about a minute without saying a word you realized it really was him.

He was dressed in jeans, and a loose shirt that was a little big on him. He had a face mask over his mouth and a black ball cap on hiding his hair. You forced yourself to say something intelligent.

“Why are you doing this?” You asked. Jihoon sat down next to you. He didn’t ask if he could, or if you wanted company. He just did.

“Doing what?”

“Talking to me.”

Jihoon stared at you in a way that was scary. Not because he himself was scary, but because you weren’t used to being looked at like that. He was committing you to his memory. You could tell by how intent his gaze was. Anything you did in this moment would be imprinted into his memory forever.

“Let’s take a picture together,” Jihoon said instead. “I’m your bias in Seventeen right? You should have a picture on your phone of you with your bias.”

You stared at him, skeptical of his intentions.

“Is this for a reality show or something?” You asked him. “I don’t understand why you would waste your time with a fan like this.”

Jihoon started to respond, but as he did he removed his facemask, an action that distracted you to the point that whatever he said went right over your head. His cheeks were riddled red. It wasn’t from the sun, it couldn’t be because his face had been hidden from the sun before. And the tinge was just over his cheekbones, almost like…

Jihoon seemed to notice where your eyes were and he shifted his gaze away from you after only a moment. You frowned a little and opened your mouth to comment on the red of his cheeks when he held up his phone in the prime position for a selfie.

“Come closer, I only bite when people want me to.”

His laugh was so… So much more precious then you had ever realized. You had always cherished it. You found comfort in his laughter in the past, but to be right there next to it. You never wanted him to stop laughing. The way his whole body moved when he laughed. Even though it was a pretty small laugh considering what he had proven he could do on some interviews. You looked at him, your lips slowly curving up into a smile. He noticed the look, and his laugh quieted down so that he could smile back at you.

_Click._

You blinked and looked at the phone screen in surprise. You couldn’t see the picture that Jihoon had just taken you could only see what was currently being reflected in the camera. Your surprised expression, and Jihoon’s pleasant one. He lowered his hand and set his phone down in the grass.

“Your turn,” he stated.

You wordlessly handed over your phone and murmured off your passcode. He smiled at the screen before even opening the phone.

“I’m your background?” He asked. Your face reddened in embarrassment.  _You had forgotten about that._ You couldn’t figure out how to intelligently respond to the comment either. Anything you said would just sound dumb and fangirl-y or super tsundere-y and you didn’t want to come off either way so you just didn’t say anything at all.

Jihoon didn’t seem to mind this and began to open your phone camera.

“You’re pretty quiet,” he commented as he held up your phone for the picture. He smiled at the phone screen and so did you.

_Click._

He lowered the phone and went into your photos to look at the picture you had just taken. You could tell there was more that he wanted to say to you, but you could also tell that he wasn’t going to say it.

“I’ve been in a mood the last few days. It doesn’t seem to want to pass,” you admitted rawly. You cursed yourself inwardly for being so  _open_  with him. Just because he was one of your top favorite idols didn’t mean you should  _feel_ comfortable talking to him like this. You always knew that you shouldn’t act like it was okay behavior to feel comfortable with idols that you didn’t know. You told yourself not to treat them like they were familiar when they posted on instagram and when you wrote them in letters, but something in you had never been able to hold yourself back and prevent yourself from emotionally befriending your idols. In the long run, it  _shouldn’t_ have mattered anyways. You were never supposed to get the opportunity to meet any of them.

 _This_ , well, it had never been part of the plan.

“A mood?” Jihoon questioned. He looked at you for a moment too long, so you looked down at your hands. He took this as an opportunity to look back down at your phone and start to browse through your photos.

“Hey!” You protested reaching forward. He scoffed, pulling away from you.

“What? You have something to hide?” He teased lightly.

And you  _definitely_  did have something to hide. Hundreds and  _hundreds_  of pictures of him were on your phone. How mortifying would it be if he found those? Or even found a picture of you on your phone you didn’t want him to see? None of your pictures were inappropriate but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t still be embarrassing if he saw the selfies you confidently took when you were all on your own.

“Just give me my phone back!” You exclaimed. Jihoon got to his feet and began to scroll through your photos out of your reach.  _That_ made you scoff.

“What do you think that’s going to do?! I’m taller than you!”

Jihoon stopped scrolling through your pictures in order to look slightly offended at you.

“ _Barely_ ,” he responded. You just sat and stared up at him from the grass. He didn’t say anything as his finger slid across your screen. After a moment he stopped and glanced down at you.

“Am I even one of your favorite idols? I have yet to see a single picture of me.”

His tone of voice was a little gruff, lower then you were used to, and the playful expression that had been on his face was gone.

That’s when you remembered- to your own immense relief- that you had gone through a binge of other idols the other night so any pictures of him, or you even would be pretty far in.

He swiped his finger a few more times and then sighed. He visibly exited the app and entered the camera app again. He raised the camera and started to take his own picture. You scrunched your eyebrows together.

“Wha… what are you doing?” You asked him. He shrugged.

“You need more pictures of me,” he replied. The way he said it was cute,  _really_ cute. He sounded like a little kid. You didn’t say that though. Instead, you grumbled.

“I really don’t need more pictures,” you mumbled. “I have too many already.”

Honestly, you had always assumed Jihoon would find that sort of thing a bit creepy. You had always been a little skeptical over the sanity of the concept. So many pictures in your phone of someone you hadn’t ever met, and likely would never meet… It was just a weird concept if you thought about it too much. Which you did.  _Often._

It didn’t stop you from collecting an album of pictures of Jihoon on your phone, however, and printing some of them out to adorn the borders of your Seventeen posters. Creepy or not, having pictures of the idols you adored on your walls and in your phone gave you hope. It kept you inspired. Sometimes, it even made you happy.

That was only sometimes, however. Nowadays when you were unhappy, well, nothing could keep you from being unhappy. Except for a few certain people at small, random instances.

You gestured for Jihoon to come back down to the ground, which he died after snapping a few more pictures of himself. You didn’t take your phone back from him, you just tapped what you needed to while he held your phone securely in his hand.

You had always liked it when other people used your phone. You didn’t know why. It should feel like an invasion of privacy. You shouldn’t like letting people go through your texts and read your notes and look at your pictures. But you did.

You didn’t have anything to hide.

Maybe that was part of it. The only things that were on your phone that people didn’t already know about were things that you wanted to say but found yourself unable to because of your own insecurities. You wanted people to know you. You wanted people to understand you, and this… This was one of the only ways that would happen.

You directed Jihoon back to your photos and went back to show him the albums. You didn’t have many of them to show, but the ones in there that you did, would help prove your point.

“Just Namjoon?” Jihoon asked. At first, you were confused, and then you remembered.

“Oh, yeah. The only other idol album I have.”

“To Moon, To Moon, To Moon?” Jihoon said in response. You pressed your lips together.

“ _Second_ , only other idol album I have,” you corrected. Jihoon didn’t look amused, even as you clicked on the album of photos that was only of him. If you didn’t know any better, you would think that Jihoon was experiencing something akin to jealousy.

His tone of voice got deeper when he saw that you had pictures of other idols, his body stiffer at any evidence that you might like another idol more than him. The wish to put more pictures of himself on your phone because he didn’t think you had enough…

But you did know better. You knew he wasn’t jealous because he was Lee Jihoon from Seventeen and it was ridiculous to imagine for even a moment that he was even possibly jealous and wanted more of your attention.

“See?” You said softly. Jihoon took back complete control of your phone and began to look through the pictures. He went back after a moment and seemed to compare his album with the other ones on your phone. After only a moment he seemed satisfied. He handed you back your phone.

“You could still use more pictures. There’s no such thing as too many pictures.”

There was such things as too many pictures.

You knew better than anyone just how dangerous photos could be. They invoked powerful emotions that could stay with a person for the rest of their lives. Photos used to be one of your favorite things. Back when you were always happy they were a good thing. You were reminded of pleasant memories. Reminded of a good past that made you want to see your friends.

At some point, your pictures just reminded you of how unhappy you were. Looking at them just brought on a heavy sense of dread.

“Why did you leave a comment on my instagram?” You finally asked. You had been thinking about it since it happened. You wanted to ask as soon as you saw him, but then again, you wanted to ask him a lot as soon as you saw him. What was he doing out here anyways?

But you couldn’t really seem to find the words or even formulate a coherent enough thought to really grip the situation.

It was so weird that Jihoon was just… Here with you. He acted like you two were old friends like he knew you. Sure you acted the same way but to be completely real it was weird that either of you acted like that.

“Cause you posted a picture of me. It’s only fair,” he responded. “Besides, don’t you comment on all of my photos?”

You narrowed your eyes at him. The acquisition itself was suspicious. You knew that there were a lot of people that commented under Jihoon’s posts. Many that commented under every post, and many that commented a lot under every post.

You commented very minimally under every post he made just about as soon as he made it. The idea that he ever actually saw those comments felt unreal to you.

“I do that with a lot of idols, not just you,” you responded stubbornly looking away from Jihoon. You weren’t sure if he was teasing you or not. You were pretty sure he was, but the words were spoken rather plainly, not jokingly.

“I’ve noticed.”

Jihoon’s eyes bore into your side, but you refused to give him the satisfaction of looking at him. Instead, you brushed grass off of your lap and stood up.

“Look I should be going…”

“Oh, how the tables have turned,” Jihoon replied dryly. “Now I’m the one who has to clamor for your attention.”

You gave him a confused look.

“I… I don’t understand.”

Jihoon shrugged, a small smile crossing his lips.

“Have you noticed yet?” He asked you. Now you were even more confused.

“Noticed what?”

“Noticed that you aren’t shaking,” he replied. “And you’re sweating.”

You stared at Jihoon wordlessly for a moment.

How…  _How did he know about that? How did he know about the shaking?_

And, why was he right?

You had spent all day trying to warm up, trying to calm down but when you raised your hand to check the status of your shaking body you found that he was right.

_Oh my god, he was right._

You weren’t shaking at all.

“Goodbye,” you replied. He nodded once.

“Oh, you’ll see me again.”

You turned around and walked away. You kept playing that scene around in your head.

When had you stopped shaking? When had you stopped feeling cold?

You were so confused, so completely and utterly confused.

Later that night, when you were trying to feel the urge to do something…  _Anything_. You got a notification on your phone.

Woozi had posted another picture on Instagram.

You didn’t really want to look. Everything about him now was just so confusing, and you couldn’t stand that confusion.

But you couldn’t help wondering what he had posted either way.

You lifted your phone and slide it unlocked.

The picture was one taken at the park. It wouldn’t be obvious to anyone who looked at the photo, and at first, the photo didn’t seem significant until you noticed your figure walking away in the distance.

Your eyes drifted to the caption. One word.

“웃어”


	4. Chapter 4

You weren’t starving yourself.

That’s what you kept telling yourself.

You were in Korea, and the food here was different, and the food here was spicy and that’s why you weren’t eating because you were picky and didn’t know what you liked here.

That’s what you kept repeating in your head.

You were in a cafeteria, you went to the right place to get food. There had even been a place with macaroni and cheese on the menu.

But they were out of mac and cheese for the next fifteen minutes… Thirty minutes ago.

Now you were settled, and anxious and you weren’t feeling like moving. No matter what you told yourself you couldn’t get the urge to get up.

You weren’t even hungry.

_God, why weren’t you even hungry?_

You hadn’t eaten all day. You should be hungry. But a single thought had meant that you suddenly had lost your appetite.

_I’ve been eating too much. I shouldn’t eat so much._

And just like that, it was over.

Your hunger was gone in a flash. The past few days all you had done was eaten one meal, and you hadn’t been hungry at any other points in the day.

You went from eating 2000 calories to maybe 800, and the influencer? A single passing thought.

You weren’t overweight. You weren’t anorexically skinny. You didn’t have a problem with your weight or anything of the sort. You didn’t like people watching you eat, but that didn’t usually stop you from eating.

The power of your own mental influence had never been this intense before.

You had told yourself not to snack so much before in the past. You had a bad habit of eating too much when you got your hands on snacks. You got really bad cravings for really random sugary sweets a lot too, and if there was snack food around you couldn’t keep yourself from eating some.

You hadn’t had a craving since the eating problem first occurred.

Someone in the cafeteria stood up, sharply pushing back their plastic chair as they did so. The resulting sound was a loud screech that made you jump a little looking in that general direction. The person didn’t even seem to notice that they had made such a loud noise. They were laughing and smiling as they walked. Clueless to your mental state.

You tried to focus back in on the book you were reading.

_Horror._

You had been very interested in horror recently.

Short films, long movies, short stories, web comics and more. You couldn’t focus on anything unless there was a scary scenario running through your head. The monotone words of someone recalling a story in which they were almost kidnapped had become the only thing that could keep your idling brain entertained recently.

You couldn’t do anything unless you were focusing on some sort of twisted horrifying scenario.

You had never been interested in horror stories before. In fact, horror used to genuinely terrify you. Over the years you had built an immunity to the scares. Jump scares didn’t get you much anymore. No, the  _ambiance_  was what was scary. Build a creepy scenario, and it sent chills down your spine.

A loud laugh ripped you from your thoughts. You looked to the side and noticed that there were two businessmen standing near you, having a conversation. You were surprised that you hadn’t noticed them before. They weren’t quiet and they were stationed pretty close to you.

Your leg began to bounce,  _nerves_.

You leaned back in your chair, keeping your book propped open with your left hand, and chewing thoughtlessly on the tip of your thumb as you did so. You didn’t chew on your fingers. In fact, you didn’t really have bad habits like that. Sometimes you wondered what it was like to have a habit like that. You’ve had nervous ticks before. The normal things. You just sometimes wondered what it would be like if you had picked up other ones instead of the ones you had. So you consciously played with them, until you subconsciously picked it up, doing various odd habits from time to time.

The chair in front of you slid out from under the table. You glanced up in surprise, and what you found there made you jump.

_Jihoon._

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” he commented. His expression was soft. He had makeup on, a lot of it, but it didn’t hide how heavy his bags were under his eyes. Even his smile, while genuine, was weary.

He set two trays on the table, one in front of you.

“Evening,” you responded. Seeing Jihoon smile made your concerns momentarily melt away.

He looked so damn happy, just to see you.

It was odd to think that anyone could feel happy just because you were there. Especially someone who you had realistically spent so little time with. But he was.

You knew that the boys had just been doing practice and heavy promotions for their upcoming comeback. In the pictures you had seen, Jihoon hadn’t looked all that happy. You had been trying to avoid thinking about how down he may be feeling with the stress of being an idol.

The last time you had looked at someone and seen them smile at you, you hadn’t wanted to smile back. You couldn’t remember actively seeing someone in person, and wanting to smile at them when they smiled at you. Even your friends you didn’t want to smile back to because you didn’t want to lie. You didn’t want to manipulate them into thinking that you were happy when you really weren’t.

This was the first time in at least a year that you smiled right back without feeling that dread in your stomach for smiling and not really wanting to. Probably because you wanted to smile.

“What’s this?” You asked gesturing towards the trey that Jihoon had brought to the table. He tilted his head.

“Macaroni and cheese. I’m hungry,” he replied. You gave him a small tilt of your head.

“Why is there two treys?” You reiterated.

“For you,” he replied. “It’s dinnertime you should be eating.”

You were a pretty impressionable person.

There were certain people that you held pretty highly in your heart. You never made it known that you held them so highly so they would probably be surprised to hear exactly how often they were in your thoughts. Unsurprisingly enough, Woozi was one of those people.

You remembered times in the past when those influential people had told you something that made you change something about yourself completely.

It was always something that you had been thinking yourself already but hadn’t been comfortable enough to say out loud.

You were told once that your hair didn’t look that good down. That was your high school crush. You didn’t wear your hair down for the next four years, and only wore it down after you got it cut.

You were told at another time that you looked good in bright colors. That was by a childhood friend. You wore bright colors from then on.

One time, a guy had liked you. He was nice, but you weren’t sure how you felt about him. Your best friend at the time was very aware of everything that went on in your life. You wanted him to meet the guy you knew liked you. You knew that his approval was what you were looking for. If he didn’t approve of him, well… You knew you wouldn’t want to date him.

He didn’t say anything about him after meeting him, so you stopped inviting the guy to hang out with you.

You were _very_ impressionable.

It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, you just were. You  _knew_  you were.

So you were careful when getting to know your kpop biases, because if they had a preference of some sort in a girl, you were afraid you might cling on to that, and change yourself to try and conform to that.

“You watch anime don’t you?” He asked after a moment. You cocked your head to the side.

“Yeah,” you replied softly. He smiled.

“Are you keeping up with any anime this season?” He asked. “I haven’t been able to really but I know that there are a lot worth watching.”

“You’re probably way too busy producing to watch anime,” you agreed. “I haven’t been following many either because of school. But I have been watching Slime.”

“Really? I have too!” Woozi agreed. Excitement crossed his facial features, and for a second he didn’t look as tired. It made you smile even brighter.

“Yeah! Honestly, it’s one of my favorite anime right now! Rimuru Tempest is so cool!” You gushed. Woozi agreed just as brightly. Before you knew it the two of you had begun to have an in depth conversation about the show and quite honestly you were a little taken aback by Jihoon’s love of the japanese cartoons.

Jihoon acted a little bit like a jock sometimes. He didn’t seem like the type to be interested in something like anime on the surface. Of course, the short conversation you had with him proved otherwise.

An undeniable spark lit up in his eyes as he spoke about the characters in anime they had both watched, and when he got particularly excited about a plot you were able to add input that only made him more excited.

You got him talking about Goblin Slayer, a particularly controversial anime for a scene in the first episode, and your opinion on it had surprisingly enough aligned with his. After a while you just settled down and listened to the boy excitedly speaking in between large, sloppy  bites of food.

Your phone was actually the thing that interrupted the conversation between you two. You glanced down, surprised to see that you had a call from Caitlin. You answered it.

“Is everything okay?” You asked softly.

_“Is everything okay? It’s late and you haven’t been answering your texts!”_

Your eyes widened slightly and you pulled your phone down to look at the time. It was almost midnight. You lowered your phone and mouthed just that to Jihoon who looked to be just as surprised as you were. He looked at his watch, and then at his phone, and then at your watch, and then he reached forward and he took your phone from your hand. You didn’t understand why he did that, but you let him.

“Sorry I kept her out late, don’t worry, I’ll let her go back now.”

He didn’t wait for Caitlin to respond. He hung up the phone right afterwards, and stared down at it. He then looked at you. His expression was soft. God, he looked so tired.

“Do you still have promotions tomorrow?” You asked him, your voice so quiet that you didn’t think he would hear. Whenever your voice got this quiet people didn’t ever hear you.

“We have practice pretty early,” he admitted after a moment. Your expression solemned.

“Why did you stay out with me so late. If you push your body like this-”

“If I hadn’t have come over and brought you food would you have eaten at all?” Jihoon interrupted. There wasn’t a lot you could say to that. You could either lie, or you could tell the truth.

“I-”

“I could have lied to you about how early I had to get up,” Jihoon said interrupting you again. “You lie a lot don’t you? About things that don’t even matter sometimes. This matters, do you really want to lie to me about something that matters?”

“No.”

The word left your mouth before you could even think it through. You figured that gave you a pretty clear idea on what that meant.

“I wouldn’t have eaten,” you admitted. “I’m… It’s… Eating is weird for me right now.”  
“I like a girl who eats,” Jihoon said.

There it was. The damning phrase. It was all over for you now. Any hope of you actually being able to get over that stupid eating habit yourself, or actually having yourself go through a really bad health habit was all over. That’s all Jihoon had to say.

“Not that that should matter,” Jihoon corrected immediately. “You can do what you want, you should just… You should try to stay healthy.”

_Try to stay healthy._

You wanted to be mad at him for telling you to be healthy when he was an idol and you knew he wasn’t healthy himself, but you couldn’t rightly say it when you weren’t doing it either.

“I’m usually better about it, it’s just a recent thing,” you mumbled defiantly. You got to your feet and grabbed both of the trays. “We need to get you to bed.”

You walked them over to the trash and he followed behind you, and a soft expression on his face. You smiled at him tentatively.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he replied. “Nothing at all.”

Your expression turned into one of slight confusion, but the smile didn’t leave your face even as you did so.

“You’re much weirder in real life then I imagined you would be,” you mumbled back. Jihoon didn’t respond to that, and the two of you fell in line as you exited the building. “Where are you off to?”

“What do you think you’re going to do? Walk me home?” Jihoon asked, his voice a little bit quieter than before. You glanced over at him and noticed that he was stumbling just a tad as he walked.

“I know you’re a producer and a unit leader, but you really need to start prioritizing your rest,” you stated. “I’ve only gone like a week or two on that awful eating schedule. How long have you gone without rest?”

Jihoon didn’t respond and that was all the answer that you needed from him.

“God, I hate idols,” you murmured in English. Jihoon glanced at you, and you were pretty sure he had understood what you said, but he didn’t comment on it either way. He instead looked away from you at a passing car.

“How are you liking Korea?” He asked you. “I bet you’ve been planning this trip for a while right? Is it everything you wanted it to be?”

You nodded slowly, following Jihoon down the sidewalk to wherever he was leading you two.

“It’s nice. Different then America, but not that different you know? It’s weird seeing things in a language that isn’t my first, and eating food that isn’t the kind I grew up with,” you explained. “Different countries themselves are just strange. It’s not the first time I’ve visited one, but I’ve never been this far from home before. Especially not for this long and without my family.”

“Yeah but you don’t have a great relationship with your family anyways,” Jihoon agreed. You glanced at him.

“Yeah,” you agreed, but the question in your head remained unspoken. How did Jihoon know that?

“I know I’m an idol and all, but if you ever need anything, don’t be afraid to contact me,” he stated. Halfway through the statement he paused to yawn. “Where are you staying?”

“I don’t trust you to walk back on your own buddy,” you replied lightly. “I can make my way back without falling asleep. You on the other hand, I don’t think so.”  
Jihoon glared at you lightly for the jab, but you weren’t able to take the expression all that seriously when you could tell just how tired he was. It was weird, but you had watched a number of compilations of Seventeen in their freetime. You knew how he acted when he was tired. He liked to lean on things and rest his eyes, hit people lightly on the side for attention and comfort. You wanted to offer to be that support, but you still weren’t really sure what this was. Were you in a spot that you could offer that? What were you two anyways?

“I can’t let you walk home alone,” Jihoon protested. You sighed.

“Don’t make me google where you guys live,” you threatened. He frowned deeper and paused to lean against the wall. His eyes fluttered shut for just a moment, which seemed to remind him exactly how tired he was.

“I’m just down this street. We’re a block away.”

“Good, good,” you murmured softly. You hesitated to offer your arm to him, and instead just waited for him to collect himself. Once he did you guys started walking again in silence. In fact, neither of you spoke until he finally stopped in front of a building that in your distant memory looked familiar.

“This is my dorm,” Jihoon murmured. You could tell he was reluctant to leave you there so you gave him a smile and waved him off.

“Get some sleep. Thank you for the food today,” you said in farewell. Before he could say anything else you turned on the heel of your foot and started to walk away. He called your name after you and added a quick:

“See you later.”

“Good bye, Woozi,” you called back, giving him a stiff wave over your head.

It didn’t take you long to get back home after that. Seventeen’s dorm was fortunately only about a thirty to forty-five minute walk back to your apartment. Once you arrived back both of your roommates were luckily sleeping. You were worried that they would stay up waiting for you to return.

You tried to just lay down and go right to sleep, but it was super hard for you to focus. You kept thinking about your interactions with Jihoon today. Before. Even sooner then that.

You felt like you were crazy. Hallucinating maybe.

Had you possibly finally gone insane?

Sure, Caitlin and Julia had  _both_  seemed to see Woozi and the other boys as well. They were the ones who told you about the instagram comments in the first place. You had seen the picture of yourself on Woozi’s instagram.

_웃어._

You tentatively upturned your lips. You let the expression drop after only a single small moment.

This was real.

To give yourself one more piece of proof you looked down at your phone, looking at the series of pictures the boy had left on your phone.

_You need more pictures of me._

You closed your eyes and shoved your phone back into your pocket.

There were so many loose ends. This entire situation was just…  _Too_  bizarre. Like a bad fanfiction plot line. You weren’t a lucky girl. You weren’t stunning, and recently you were barely even Jihoon’s type. So why…  _How_  was this happening?

You changed into your pajamas and laid yourself down on to sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

Your classes this semester weren’t as hard as you had worried they would be. Luckily despite them all being in Korea you didn’t take any of your classes entirely in Korean, except for the course that helped you understand the local language. When you were at school you were surrounded by a ton of people that were your age and were all from other countries as well. There were only fifteen of you guys, but you all got along pretty well.

 _Unluckily_  for you, they had all heard about your run in with Seventeen, because they were pretty much all Kpop fans. They too were all wondering what you had done to deserve that attention from the boys.

_What is Vernon like? Why did they comment on your post? Are you two really dating?_

There was so much you wanted to say. So much you wanted to ask but so much that you couldn’t. Instead, you nervously smiled and responded that you supposed you were just lucky.

That had to be it. You must just be really lucky.

“We need to get some groceries,” Caitlin murmured as she looked through her phone. You glanced at her.

“We should swing by the store then,” you replied, putting your notebook into your backpack.

It had been about a week and a half since you last saw Jihoon. Your classes were a ten-minute walk away from Seventeen’s dorm. Your apartment was in the direction of Seventeen’s dorm from your classes. The grocery store you were going to was twenty minutes away from Seventeen’s dorm.

You hated it. You hated how you kept track of everywhere you went based on these measurements now.

You wanted to go by every day. You wondered if you did if one day you would see Jihoon there.

They were promoting their album. They were busy but you were selfish, you wanted to see him again. You wished you could see him again, you had so many questions you still needed to ask.

“Can we get a lot of snacks?” You asked. “Our budget is pretty good, right? I swear, recently all I want to do is eat.”

Julia laughed.

“Oh, we’ve noticed. I’m sure we can afford some… You’re getting a job soon right?”

You nodded.

You had applied for a job at a convenience store. It wasn’t that you needed to work while you were here. You were all well off and had saved a lot of money up for this trip but without having to work every week… Well, you were getting antsy. You had too much free time on your hands.

You really liked to be busy. Even though you generally got too busy and became very stressed you found that in the end, you were happiest when you had a lot on your plate. It made you feel productive when maybe somedays you weren’t really.

You had of course gotten the job. You started in a week, and you were excited to get back into customer service. You missed the customer interactions. You missed getting paid. You missed having coworkers. You missed doing more than just sitting around your room all day.

“You know, maybe while we are there we’ll see some idols,” you joked, a large smile crossing your face. “Jeon Jungkook oppa, where are you?”

Caitlin’s face reddened and she smacked your shoulder.

“Shut up, you’re one to talk Mrs. Lee Jihoon,” she cooed back. You rolled your eyes.

“Don’t be ridiculous, if anything he’s just humoring a fan.”

Even as you wrote off the situation a large smile was spread across your face. You couldn’t help but notice that recently you had been feeling a lot happier. Maybe it was because you were finally getting over your anxieties here in Korea. Maybe it was because you had blocked your dad who had been giving you so much anxiety in the first place. Making you feel bad for striving for the opportunity to study abroad. Maybe it was just that you were finally away from all of those people who made you feel especially worthless all the time. You had been told countless times that you couldn’t come to Korea. It would be too hard for you. You wouldn’t be able to afford it. You wouldn’t survive so far from your parents.

That had made you want to come even more. It had also made you that much more nervous when you arrived.

“Soju!” Caitlin sang, rushing over to the shelves with the alcohol. You laughed and rolled your eyes politely.

“You have a one-track mind. I’m going to go grab the toilet paper,” you said. You walked away from your friends and began to explore the aisles for what you were looking for. In one of the aisles, you noticed a taller guy with a face mask on. Your initial impression was that you should go into another aisle. Even all the way here in Korea you were nervous to be in an aisle with other people. You didn’t like to get in other people’s way and preferred to just go into empty grocery store aisle but this one was the one that the toilet paper was in and you were trying to be less of a pushover, so you took a deep breath and walked down the aisle. The person glanced up at you, and you gave him a short smile.

He had a ball cap on so you couldn’t see him very well but… Well, he resembled…

You shook the thought out of your head and browsed the paper products, trying to figure out which one you should get. You looked to see which products were the most expensive and tried to recall the brand you guys had gotten last time.

“We always buy that.”

You startled and looked to your left. The guy was standing next to you, pointing at one of the more averagely priced packs.

“Oh um-”

“You’re her right? The one that ran into Vernon and Woozi and Seungkwan the other day?”

You squinted at him silently for a moment. From this angle, you could see his face better. You could make out the shape of the bags of his eyes like little crescent moons turned upwards.

“Seungcheol,” you breathed in surprise. You instinctively ducked your head into a deep bow, murmuring a polite hello to the boy. “What are the odds.”

“We shop here a lot,” Seungcheol responded. He smiled at you. “So it’s not that odd.”

“Are you shopping for everyone?” You asked him, pushing your hands into your back pockets. God, what did you even say to an idol when you ran into them on the street? There wasn’t really any protocol to this. You didn’t want to give him a bad impression of yourself.

“Yeah, I have to grab snacks for the others. We had a long practice today.”

“Oh, maybe you can tell me what’s good? I’ve been wanting to get myself some snacks,” you replied. You couldn’t tell for sure because he was wearing the facemask, but you could’ve sworn that Seungcheol smiled at that.

“You snack a lot?”

“I go through phases. Last year I swear all I did was get up in the middle of the night to eat snacks,” you admitted with a shy laugh. You picked up a pack of toilet paper and followed Seungcheol through the grocery store.

“Jihoon is the same way,” Seungcheol replied. “You know one time at two in the morning he woke up five members just to eat with him.”

You couldn’t help it- you laughed. For some reason, Jihoon didn’t seem like the type to eat snacks in the middle of the night. You had always assumed people would judge you for doing just that, and you had tried to get away from it when you moved into the apartments with your friends. You liked to snack on things like chips and hated to be loud. Back when you lived in dorms you had gotten into the habit of going out into the hall just to eat a bag of chips.

“That’s very…” you trailed off, reluctant to use the word that you wanted to use to describe the behavior. “Very… cute…”

Seungcheol laughed again.

“Mhm,” he asserted. “He likes rice cake and cold noodles the best, but he’ll eat anything. You would be surprised by how much he eats.”

You smiled despite yourself. God, it was so cute to imagine Jihoon sitting up at night in the middle of working on a new song, snacking on some noodles while he thought over what he had created. There was a reason you had always liked him so much and this was one of those reasons. It was so easy for you to imagine him doing things. Imagine him being domestic.

You had never thought you wanted anything domestic in your life, but biasing Woozi had made you think that maybe you were more domestic then you had originally thought you were.

“Why are you telling me this?” You asked softly. Seungcheol took a bag off of the shelf and put it in your arms. You looked down at it and tilted your head.

It took you a moment to translate the hangul, but once you did you deducted they were called “Honey twists”.

“Woozi eats these when he wants something sweet,” Seungcheol explained. He piled more stuff into your arms. Packs of spicy ramen, and bags of other sorts of chips. He even put triangular kimbap in your arms. Each time you questioned the action he just said that Woozi liked that kind of snack. Eventually, you stopped questioning it.

You were glad to have your appetite back. You had never been the kind of person to starve yourself. Sometimes you went a while without eating because you didn’t have a lot of time to eat, so you had gotten yourself into the habit of eating almonds on busy days to keep your appetite down, but you were not an unhealthy eater.

Wanting to constantly snack all the time, while not entirely healthy was part of your character. You felt like you weren’t even in your own skin when you weren’t hungry at two in the morning.

“I should find my friends,” you said eventually. Seungcheol looked up from his shopping list, and you had to admit he looked a little bit disappointed that you were leaving him to complete his grocery store adventures on your own. “Hey! It’s not really my preference but I haven’t seen my friends in like twenty minutes and I can’t keep leaving them hanging for Seventeen members.”

Seungcheol chuckled.

“Alright, well, I’ll tell Jihoon you said hi.”

You opened your mouth, your face reddening a bit as you tried to insist that he didn’t need to do that but, before you could the older boy was buried back in the ways of his shopping list and the contents of his shopping cart. You smiled and rolled your eyes, starting to make your way away from him.

“Wait!” You turned around, puzzled by the sudden attention from Seungcheol. When you looked back at him, you were surprised to see that his phone was propped up in his hand.

_Click, click._

You opened your mouth. Seungcheol responded to the unasked question with a nonchalant wave of his hand and walked away.

God, these boys really were frustrating.

-

Your first day at the convenience store should have been completely uneventful, except that it wasn’t.

You spent the time interacting politely with customers. Your manager had warned you that as a foreigner, people might treat you a little differently and assume that you didn’t know the language or your way around the shop very well.

That was a valid concern but it ended up not really being the case.

You were a good employee. You always had been. You weren’t  _perfect_  in social situations but the minute you clocked in it was like you were the most social person in the city. If you could tell a customer needed help you politely gave them assistance if they asked for it or not. You melted the cold expressions on the customer’s faces by talking to them about the weather or The Boyz new song or telling them that you weren’t familiar with Korea but were enjoying it either way.

You had some customers suggest places that you should eat and others tell you that you just had to go to this festival in their daughters’ college town not far from here. It melted your heart to get to know the locals and find that a smile really did go a long way in customer service.

After nearly six hours behind the counter and a long wave of chatty customers who genuinely didn’t have a care in the world, you deflated a bit, finally left alone in the small convenience store.

“Look at you, working even while across the seas from home.”

You jumped, surprised to find Jihoon standing at the counter, a fond expression on his face. You smiled in relief. It was just Jihoon.

“Are you stalking me?” You responded, squinting your eyes at the just shorter idol. “I swear the amount at which I see you is… It’s just uncanny.”

Jihoon chuckled.

“No, no, it really is just random chance,” he replied pleasantly. His expression solemned and he put a chocolate bar on the counter. You began to ring him up, unable to shake the feeling of him staring at you with a thoughtful look on his face.

You had been around a few guys who liked you in your time. Guys who had been very interested in just staring at you when they thought you didn’t notice. It was because you were so friendly that guys usually liked you. You came off as a bit of an airhead. A naive, thoughtless girl who constantly wore a smile and had no cares in the world. You were shy, but extroverted and didn’t leave a single person out of a group activity if you could help it and that was why people liked you.

On the exterior, you were practically see through. You didn’t really have problems, all you cared about was everyone else and how they were feeling.

You were cute and you were nice. You were overly nice to people who weren’t used to being treated well too. As such, the people who liked you really just saw that… Exterior. Even though they watched you they only saw that much of you. They generally thought you needed help with everything that you did, even the simple things, and they assumed that they could touch you whenever and they assumed that you were okay with everything that happened around you.

In truth, you were quite capable, you didn’t really like to be helped with things you could do yourself. If you wanted to make a bad decision like walk through the snow with bare feet you wanted to be lightly told off but you wanted people to just think it was funny. You didn’t want to be forcibly lifted off the ground. Friends or not… It freaked you out to be trapped in someone’s arms like that.

When you were passionately talking about something that didn’t matter to most people you wanted to be heard. You didn’t want to be degradingly called cute and laughed into silence.

You wanted to be with someone who didn’t like you because they thought you could be the emotional support they needed because you needed emotional support too.

That’s why you had never dated anyone before.

And that was why you were surprised when the feeling of Jihoon staring at you didn’t make you wildly uncomfortable.

That look always made you uncomfortable. You always sat there and pretended like you didn’t notice, trying your damnest not to react strangely to the sudden attention until they finally looked away from you.

You turned your head to face him. Neither of you smiled, but neither of you was upset either.

“Why a job in customer service?” Jihoon asked you. “You could do anything. You’re just in college but you certainly aren’t unqualified.”

“I like customer service,” you responded. You rattled off his total in the middle of the transaction. He acknowledged it. “You know, one time at my old job this customer was talking to a new employee and the employee didn’t know how to ring up a bag of ice. My manager, James, came over and helped the employee through the transaction. He was apparently so patient and kind, that it made the customers day. I mean, that story always blows my mind. He wasn’t even doing anything for her really. It was the way he interacted with the employee that made her day.”

You slipped Jihoon his receipt.

“That’s why customer service. The littlest thing that I do can completely make somebodies day and if I get paid to make someone smile then it’s just that much more worth it… Do you want a bag?”

Jihoon shook his head and pointed at the candy bar.

“This is for you by the way,” he murmured. “It’s one of your favorites right?”

You stared at the bar blankly, your eyebrows wrinkling a little.

“Y…Yeah, how did you know that?”

Jihoon didn’t answer that question so you asked a different one.

“How long have you been here?” You asked him.

“Long enough to know that this convenience store is going to get a lot more popular,” he replied. He pushed the receipt in his pocket and gave you a short wave goodbye.


	6. Chapter 6

The next time you saw Jihoon, well…  _You_  saw him.

It was weird and kind of exciting to see Jihoon when he didn’t see you first. Every other time that you had seen him it had been the other way around.

He was with the rest of the group. It looked like they were taking pictures, probably to help with promotions. All of the boys were dressed in casual outfits. Sweaters and jeans, and if they weren’t up by the camera they were just lounging around.

Caitlin saw them just after you, her jaw dropped and she squealed, grabbing your shoulder.

“Look who it is!” She said excitedly.

It was cute that she thought that he wasn’t the first thing you saw as soon as you could see all of the boys there. He was leaned back against a small brick wall, his fingers thoughtlessly dancing around one another, and his gaze especially dazed out.

God, you wondered what he was thinking about sitting there all on his own. He was in a yellow sweater and a faded pair of jeans that were cuffed at the ankles. He kept pursing his lips thoughtlessly. Maybe there was a song stuck in his head.

“I should say hi,” you stated thoughtfully. Julia’s jaw dropped.

“And here I was trying to figure out how to convince you to do just that,” she mumbled. You elbowed her. 

“Come on, I’m not  _that_  stubborn,” you quipped back. There was another moment in which you watched all the boys interacting with one another. Vernon was looking at the crowd, waving at all the fans that were watching respectfully from a distance. When he saw you his eyes widened.

You waved, and then immediately pointed at Jihoon and put a finger in front of your lips. Vernon nodded once and returned to paying attention to the other fans.

You were wondering exactly how you should get his attention, and in that process ended up standing directly in front of him- at the correct distance, but still right in front of him. Before you could really think it over, you sat down, rested your head on your hands and snapped a picture of him.

_Click._

He didn’t seem to notice, so you figured this might be a good chance to test a theory. You inspected the picture and then went onto your instagram.

_I couldn’t resist snapping a picture… Sometimes I feel like every time I turn the corner there is a seventeen member there._

You posted it and then returned your attention to Jihoon.

Almost as soon as you made the post Jihoon’s attention got shifted. He looked down and pulled his phone out of his pocket. It took him a moment, but it wasn’t long before he looked up in surprise. You smiled the moment your eyes met and waved.

You had always loved that face he made when he wasn’t entirely expecting to be happy. _Any_ Woozi fan knew what it was like to watch an otherwise blank expression cross his face, his eyes previously focused on something else, his mind clearly somewhere completely different than where his eyes were. Then he would turn his head and his eyes would fall on something, in this case,  _you_. Then after a second, his eyes would begin to widen a bit, his lips would spread and begin to curl up and his eyes shined with delight.

You never in a million years imagined you would be the recipient of this look.

It had always brought a smile to your face. His smile was just,  _impossible_  to ignore.

Yet here you were, and here he was and here he was smiling just at getting to see you.

You waved at him and mouthed him a question.

_How are you doing?_

You had never been good at communicating with people over a long distance. Mouthing things no matter what language always ended weirdly for you. You were just _bad_  at it.

_Tired, Seungkwan woke me up._

You could understand exactly what Jihoon was mouthing you. Was that even possible?  
 _You look distracted. Do you need anything?_

Jihoon laughed, his shoulders visibly bouncing as he did so. You smiled even larger.

_Send me a heart?_

You knew he was joking, but even so, you curled your fingers into that of a heart, giving him a cheesy smile. He began to crack up even harder, and before you had the time to drop the pose, he lifted his phone and snapped a picture of you.

_Click._

You heard the sound from all the way across the sidewalk.

_You tricked me._

Jihoon shook his head.

_You’re too nice sometimes you know that? Don’t you have somewhere to be?_

You shrugged.

_I hadn’t seen you in a while._

You considered your next words carefully. You two may not actually be talking to one another but it still felt like you were. You could practically hear each word leave his mouth, and you really, really didn’t want to come off as odd. Like a weird fan who really liked being around him.

But you knew that Jihoon actually genuinely liked getting attention from others and you thought he’d like it if you were really raw and open to him.

_I don’t know I guess I missed you._

You could’ve been wrong. It was very likely, that what you saw was a trick of the light, or was just, in fact, a product of the warm sun on his skin on a hot day, but you could have sworn that you saw a small red flush crossed his face at that. You smiled and stood up nudging a few of the fangirls beside you. You whispered into their ears, able to feel Jihoon’s eyes on you as you did.

One of your ultimate favorite videos from the Kpop world ever was the one in which a fanboy aggressively professed that one of the members of Red Velvet made him happy. You had done it before at Red Velvet concerts and had always loved the way it sounded. You’d always wanted to do it for an idol that could hear you. To avoid too much attention, you got some of the other girls in on it too.

“ _Lee Jihoon_ ,” you all yelled out, cupping your mouths with your hands. It granted them the attention of almost the whole group… And even some passerbyers. “ _When you smile, I am also happy_.”

The smile on Jihoon’s lips was insane, and he stood up clearly intent on walking over to say something. You winked at him, shot him a wave a shrunk back into the crowd.

You didn’t have to talk to him when he was busy. You were honestly just happy to be able to see him smile like that.


	7. Chapter 7

One of the reasons you initially came to Korea was because you were a _huge_ fan of kpop. _Likewise_ , so were Caitlin and Julia. Likewise so were a few other people in your exchange program.

In-between classes, and now work, you all got together and began to practice doing dance covers to your favorite songs.

Oneus’ Valkyrie, Twice’s Cheer Up, Gfriend’s Sunrise… You guys practiced dancing to it all.

You also all were pretty musically inclined and decided to sing along with it, just like idols would. Yes, wow, it screamed Koreaboo, but when your professor found out about it, she had been thrilled. It was apparently a great way for you guys to get in touch with Korean culture and practice your Korean.

So with the encouragement of your teacher and the backing of your fellow students who all secretly knew that this idea was a little bizarre you all got together one night to perform your covers.

You were not the most talented dancer, and you weren’t the most powerful singer, but you believed that when you put together both of those two aspects you were pretty good.

You worked hard at dancing so it made you a pretty good dancer in general and you were also a pretty good singer, you could hit the high notes that you needed to rather well and you enjoyed singing and dancing. So you tended to follow the vocalists.

Seoho, Jihyo, and Eunha.

You were in all three of the dances that you guys were performing.

A lot of people showed up. You hadn’t really expected a lot of people to show up.

Surprisingly enough you weren’t too nervous.

“Oh  _god_ , what were we thinking,” Caitlin breathed. You patted her back.

“Relax, you’re going to do fine,” you assured softly. Caitlin huffed out a nervous laugh.

“Shut up, what do you know? You never get nervous.”

Sometimes, when you were really anxious your entire body revolted against you. It transcended your body shaking and your reddening face. It transcended all of that and became this awful feeling like your entire body was alive, it’s own entity. Like… Electricity was running through your joints… Like you could barely take in a single breath because all you wanted to do was get up and run but no matter how hard and fast you ran you won’t be able to kill the feeling, because you don’t really want to run, your body just senses your stress and thinks that running is the best way to cure that.

You wanted to run… You wanted to run so badly.

“It’s going to be fine Caitlin. We’ve been practicing this for ages, and we’re really good,” you assured softly. You looked out at the crowd of people. You sucked in a sharp breath.

_There were so many people._

“You remember Callum?” You asked. Caitlin nodded. He was a friend of theirs. He was Korean and when you had all first met him you had hidden that you liked Kpop till the death because you were afraid that he would think that was the only reason you guys liked him was because you were interested in idols. He found out when he walked in on you guys practicing a dance once time for fun.

He had been so nice about it. He always told them that they were good dancers and politely corrected their Korean if it wasn’t very good.

“If Callum was as nice as he was, what makes you think anyone in this crowd will be really mean about our performance? This is just for fun. So don’t stress okay? Just have fun.”

Caitlin’s worried expression melted into a smile.

One down.

You went to every other student. Everyone was so nervous. You understood why. You  _really_  wanted to run but as one of the originators of this ridiculous idea, you had to help make sure that everyone was emotionally okay before you were. Part of the job of any person in a leadership position was to ensure everyone was happy and felt good about themselves. You may not be a leader but people came to you for emotional support, and whether good at giving it or not you were always willing to try and help soothe everyone’s nerves.

You were pretty sure the only reason that you noticed when people were nervous was because you were used to the way that _you_  acted when you were nervous. You kept to yourself, your smile didn’t quite reach your cheeks… You could see everyone’s nerves. You taught yourself to recognize when people wanted to be heard because you knew how you felt when you weren’t heard. You took it on yourself to make sure everyone around you was okay because you hated how it felt when you weren’t okay and had no one around to help you feel better.

So once you _finally_ made it through the whole group, encouraging everyone to relax and do their best, you had ten minutes to rid yourself of enough social anxiety to kill a whale.

You _really_  wanted to run.

You started to jog in place.

“First concert?”

At this point, you were so used to his random presence that you weren’t even surprised that he was there.

“Not really… Kind of,” you replied.

“Let me guess, high school theater?” Jihoon asked.

“Ding, ding, ding.”

You both smiled in a silent greeting.

“Well, I’m excited to see you perform. You guys have a fanchant yet? Lightsticks?”

“Yeah, you just yell  _koreaboo_  throughout the entire performance,” you joked right back. Jihoon laughed at that.

“Look, you’re going to do great,” he assured you thoughtfully He let out a yawn, and upon doing so looked embarrassed. You sighed.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t been sleeping.”

“Well-”

“I’ve been eating three meals a day, plus snacks at night, and I don’t think I’ve eaten breakfast since middle school,” you complained. “The least you could do is get some sleep. Relationships are about sacrifice you know?”

“Relationships?”

Your heart skipped a beat.  _Had you really just said the two of you were in a relationship?_  You swallowed hard.

“Ah, sorry, I, um, I haven’t been sleeping myself honestly,” you admitted. “I’ve been tired and it means I don’t really think over what I say before it leaves my mouth-”

“I haven’t had a lot of female friends before,” he interrupted. The lighting wasn’t very good, but you could see the red tinge over the bridge of his nose, and this time you knew it was a blush. “And I’ve never had a girlfriend before.”

“So I hear,” you replied softly. He looked around at the crowd of people and held his hand out. He wanted something.

You weren’t really keen on people touching you. You liked it most of the time from people you were comfortable around, and you really liked hugs from most people. Sometimes however, you didn’t like touch. When strangers touched you it made you really uncomfortable, and sometimes you could feel the touch for ages afterwards.

When boys in particular touched you, you also generally became very uncomfortable. Consensual or not, you often got chills. You avoided physical contact with people as much as possible because of this and generally just told people that you were uncomfortable with touch because then they would just avoid touching you. You weren’t really sure exactly what about touch made you uncomfortable sometimes, so it was generally just safer to lead people to assume you didn’t like it at all.

You placed your wrist in his hand.

He was warm.

He pulled you away from the crowd and the lights and into a nearby alley that was dark and empty. You should have been scared. Sometimes even idols were bad people. You still weren’t.

Maybe you were just dumb and naive.

“If you’ve never had a friend that was a girl, or a girlfriend before… What am I?” You asked. Jihoon stared at you, a contemplative expression settled on his face. He offered no answer.

You leaned your back against the grimy brick wall and looked up at the sky.

“You can’t see the stars tonight.”

Jihoon hummed and his eyes trailed up as well.

“No.”

You pointed.

“Polaris should be there,” you stated softly. Your finger crossed the sky. “The big dipper there. Altair, there.”

“Right, you’re a bit of a space geek aren’t you?”

You smiled.

“You know things about me…” You laughed in disbelief. “Jihoon what aren’t you telling me?”

You were mostly joking but you also weren’t. A lot of things about him didn’t add up. From day one he had known more about you then you really thought he should have. You hadn’t really thought to mention it before but at this point you couldn’t help but say something.

“It’s nothing bad,” Jihoon assured. “And I’ll tell you soon. It’s just not time for you to know yet.”

Jihoon was getting closer to you as he spoke. At this point, he was so close that your breathes nearly mingled.

You had never imagined you would ever be this close to Jihoon. Never in a million years. His eyes flickered down to your lips…

You’d never had a real kiss before. You’d never wanted to kiss someone before.

There was even a moment in which a guy had tried to get to kiss you. He took you out away from all the people and harassed you about if you had ever kissed someone, and whether or not you were still a virgin. He continued to ask you again and again.  _What would you do if I kissed you?_ Your only response had really been to not do it… At the time you had been really scared the guy would kiss you.

“You never answered my earlier question,” you murmured. “About our… Uhm….”

“You’re a first,” Jihoon responded. His hand was on your cheek… When had it gotten there? He moved it slowly to the back of your head and tentatively looked you in the eyes. He was being very soft. You didn’t think any guy had ever been this thoughtful around you before. He guided your face slowly to his and then before you could really form any coherent thought your lips were pressed against one another.

You had never wanted to kiss a guy before.

You had never really actually kissed a guy before either.

You were surprised to be able to say that it felt… Really good to kiss a guy.

“ _Hey, we are about to perform!_ ”

Jihoon’s lips left yours in an instant, he ducked his head away from the person at the end of the alley… One of your classmates and you turned to face them, wiping your lips off on the back of your hand.

“Yeah,” you responded, your face burning in embarrassment. “I’m right there!”

You didn’t say goodbye to Jihoon.

You didn’t think about it until you were performing, and when you realized you should have said something to him before running off you were approaching your first main part in Oneus’ Valkyrie. The part right before the chorus where the fan chant went. Your first time singing in Korean before a crowd. You looked out into the crowd… If Jihoon was there… It was okay.

You took center.

_Click. Click._

Your eyes fell on a phone in the crowd. You almost broke character. Behind the phone was Jihoon, smiling as he took your picture.

_Everything was okay._

Oh, and for the record, he later told you that your performance was incredible.

And when you finally stopped performing you noted that you no longer had the urge to run…

**Author's Note:**

> Blast wrote a bunch of this like right before my college finals. It's personal, it's long, and it's finally up. I hope you guys enjoy it!


End file.
